This idea came up as a part of the major discussion about Lemmings 2: The Tribes skills in NeoLemmix in general, but in order to separate it from the bunch of L2-skills that can usually only be justified with "I find them kinda cool", I think this special issue deserves its own dedicated thread.
NeoLemmix has done a great job over the years at allowing Lemmings to go into every direction with both creative and destructive skills. Gone are the days were you need to have a lemming constantly bumping his head against a ceiling due to building, when all you actually want to do is build a horizontal platform. Gone are the days of always having to send a climber ahead and mine down if you want to create a walkable slope through a section of terrain - the Fencer is there for you, and actually allows the opposite type of puzzle as well (send a Glider or Floater ahead and free the crowd from below). Thanks to the Shimmier, Lemmings can now move below terrain as easily as they can move on top of terrain. And while too many options can always break a level by introducing a background, the mere existence of a skill itself is never at a danger to do so - only a skill provided in the wrong context can create a shortcut, and then again, that's true for effectively every skill.
When thinking of a matrix of "direction of movement" put up against "destructive" and "creative" skills, there are only three things remaining that Lemmings can't do:-
build straight down (to e.g. create a climbable wall or stop a crowd at a lower elevation from falling off a platform)
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build down diagonally (to allow lemmings from a lower level to walk up, or create a bridge that doesn't automatically bring a crowd from above into danger of splatting)
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dig upwardThe upward digger seems to be the biggest unoccupied niche in level design here to me. The reason being: The Platformer already eliminates many of the problems the Builder originally had, like inevitably creating splat height after covering a long horizontal distance and requiring additional builder staircases as "splatforms" below as a consequence. If a horizontal platform still ends up too high above a lower platform, the Stoner helps to cover the remaining distance.
The only type of level I see remaining for both "straight-down" and "diagonal" builders is what I would summarise as "
Rapunzel levels"
(a Lemming or crowd from above gets the crowd from below up by creating terrain, rather than by mining, as it is commonplace).
Upward digging, in contrast, can be useful to both Lemmings from above and below, and also opens up many new interesting challenges, depending on how the digging would be executed. Starting from something we already know, I think there are three skills from Lemmings 2: The Tribes that could do the job. These are pretty much mutually exclusive, since we usually don't consider adding anything to NeoLemmix that only provides a minor difference to an already-existing skill (the smallest difference in my view being the one between Stoners and Stackers, currently).
Those three potential upward-diggers are:- Laser Blaster
- Twister
- Magno Booter (Lemmings 2) / Gravity-Reversal object (Lemmings Revolution)
The core difference between the Laser Blaster and the Twister would of course be:
With the Laser Blaster, the Lemming remains in place, and terrain can be removed at a large distance. As such, the Laser Blaster is part of an overarching group of skills from L2 that could create or destroy terrain from the distance (Bazooka, Mortar, Archer, Thrower etc.). Mainy players find this use somewhat limited, as a lot of Laser Blaster levels merely consist of getting the Laser Blaster below the crowd and freeing them from below. However, with the shaft being straight, obviously it could also be used by a Climber. In such a case, the main challenge would be how to actually get a Climber to the Laser-Blaster shaft in the first place, since not even the Laser Blaster himself actually ever got close to the ceiling the Climber is supposed to climb into. Another thing is that the ridiculous fall height in Lemmings 2 often makes Laser-Blaster usage a lot easier than it should be: In NeoLemmix, with the standard fall height of 64 pixels, many drops the Laser Blaster creates will be too high, and thus will require additional skills, like Stoners, rather than auto-solving the level by itself.
The Twister, in contrast, moves the Lemming that destroys the terrain along with itself. In Lemmings 2, the Twister is mainly used for purposes for which we resort to the Fencer, given that the Fencer in L2 barely moves upwards at all. The lack of a genuine upward Miner is one of the greatest weaknesses of Lemmings 2 in my opinion, because the Twister requires the fan and thus is a nightmare to execute. In NeoLemmix, fortunately, we have a properly diagonal-moving Fencer already, and as such, we'd only need the Twister to go up vertically. This is something that the L2 Twister cannot do, obviously, because it falls straight down again. That said, there are other L2 skills that defy gravity, such as the Jet Pack and the Superlemming.
An upward digger that takes the Lemming along with it - which would indeed be more true to the original Digger -
would have to move the Lemming enough pixels to the side in whatever direction its facing, to prevent it from falling down the shaft he just created again right away.The Magno-Booter would definitely be the most versatile, but therefore probably also the hardest skill to program: It's a skill that allows Lemmings to walk on walls and ceilings. As such, it combines aspects from both the Climber and the Shimmier. The L2 Magno-Booter is pretty much just a surrogate for them, because you can't actually assign any skills to a Lemming while he's walking around in boots, at least not while he's attached to a wall or ceiling.
The Gravity-Reversal object from Lemmings Revolution accomplishes the same thing - Lemmings walking upside-down - but the direction can only be reversed in the specific spot where these objects are located. Since these upside-down Lemmings are regular Walkers, they can do anything a normal Walker could do as well - not only digging into the ceiling, but also mining, therefore acting like a Fencer, or even building.
This means that the Magno-Booter or Gravity-Reversal tool would not only fill the gap of the upward digger, but also of the downward Builder at one fell swoop.At the same time, it would eliminate the question of "How do I actually get a Lemming to access a shaft created by an upward Digger from below, e.g. for climbing?"
A Magno-Booter would simply continue to walk from the ceiling onto the wall of the shaft, and then walk up the shaft.
A gravity-reversed Lemming, in contrast, would walk along the ceiling until he reaches the shaft and then fall into it, possibly splatting when hitting the next ceiling if the distance is 64 pixels or more.
As I just outlined in another thread, I think that due to the introduction of the 10-skills-panel, NeoLemmix has space for a 20th skill, rounding out 2x10 after the Jumper has been introduced. But I'm torn about which of these three I'd like to see the most, especially being aware that they are so similar that they would most likely be mutually exclusive, because with either of them introduced into NeoLemmix, the other two can't really justify their existence.
I do think the Magno-Booter offers the most potential, while the Laser Blaser might just appeal to people because of the idea and the name.
That said, if a behaviour similar to that of the Magno-Booter can also be accomplished by introducing a new object (the Gravity-Reversal object), rather than a new skill, that would theoretically free up the slot for the 20th skill for either the Laser Blaster or the Twister.
Any thoughts on this?
And just to be clear: This is nothing but
very, very early brainstorming.
I'm not urging namida to add anything more to NeoLemmix, since he's currently already introducing new features into the game at such an incredible rate that, if I didn't know better, I would believe he had become a NeoLemmix developer full-time...